


they say love is a journey, I promise I’ll never leave

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Stucky - Freeform, being LGBT in the 1930s and 1940s, bonus points if you recognize colins last name, flashbacks to 1930s and 1940s, hammons is my creation, it took ages to make, now with an added poster, outsider pov, stucky told from the view of someone making a movie about them, writer has 4 drafts that need finished but chose to start a brand new fic instead, writer is a procrastinator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7707814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 2017 and James Barnes is alive. Steve Rogers lives and breathes and it's beyond comprehension that the two of them somehow remain side by side even in the worst of times. They've survived wars, Hydra, decades of pain and abuse, grief, cryo, bad politics and having to introduce themselves to the world all over again yet they're still standing. It's because of this that Colin Hammons decides to make a movie. He calls it Come Back to Me and it's a love story.</p><p>The plot is simply this: One look at you and my whole life falls in line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say love is a journey, I promise I’ll never leave

It's 2017 and James Barnes is alive. Steve Rogers lives and breathes and it's beyond comprehension that the two of them somehow remain side by side even in the worst of times. They've survived wars, Hydra, decades of pain and abuse, grief, cryo, bad politics and having to introduce themselves to the world all over again yet they're still standing. It's because of this that Colin Hammons decides to make a movie. He calls it _Come Back to Me_ and it's a love story.

The plot is simply this: _One look at you and my whole life falls in line._

One week after its debut he pens a controversial yet brutally honest editorial in the NY Times. It goes like this.

+

**What _Come Back to Me_ Means to LGBT Viewers**

**Colin Hammons**

In order to understand this film, you have to place yourself in the worn shoes of its main characters. You have to feel their suffering. _Come Back to Me_ has received criticism from the right paradgrim of politics and I feel the need to expose the blueprint so to speak. In this editorial you, the reader, are Steve Rogers. Factual information gathered from archived files, contributions from The Smithsonian as well as the United States military, films, James Barnes own words and reports were used in _Come Back to Me._ Some gaps have been filled in with information from the pertaining era. My commentary is in the brackets.

 

It's **1935** and the great depression continues to sweep the nation. You're seventeen years old and your mothers grave is still fresh, her death marred by carved font on tombstone gray with countless names of good men having starved to death or taken their own lives out of sheer desperation to provide their families with money. You're seventeen and your body doesn't work the way that it should. It's thin and fragile where your spirit is unflinchingly brave. It's a lopsided equation that no one has the answer to.

But you do not fight these battles alone.

You've a best friend named James Barnes but you affectionately call him _Bucky._

He drags you along to dance halls, to fairs and hotdog stands. All the while you're trying not to love him but you do and it's wrong in an illegal sort of way so you keep quiet about it. You clumsily dance and argue with him over the bills, art classes, and the fact that you see yourself as plenty able to work even when you're hacking and coughing.

[From this point on, we lose the narrative but we're to assume that life went on as usual. Fist fights in alleys, poverty and bread lines, boiled food and illness.]

 

**Fast forward to 1943.**

By the miracle of science and the brilliance of Howard Stark (and Doctor Erskine, respectively) you've grown into your skin just as Bucky is slipping away. The army accepts you as their dancing monkey and you keep trying to work your way up to him. On a cold rainy day a beautiful woman by the name of Peggy Carter tells you his regiment has been captured in enemy territory. And suddenly nothing else matters. Your sole mission is to bring him back alive even if it means breaking every law you'd sworn to uphold.

You kill men in his honor without question much like a brave knight swooping in to save his beloved. Yes, it's exactly like that.

They've violated his body and strapped him to a table (we know this because of archived mission reports) but you've came too far to go back now. One look at him and you're seventeen all over again with an I.V. in your arm and your name spoken softly on his lips. One look at him and your whole life falls in line. 

You've rescued him. You're the knight and he's the beloved but the dragon escapes. You let it. He comes first.

It's a grueling three day walk back to base with muddy boots and many stops to tend to the wounded. 

[We're to assume that Barnes didn't speak much about the abuse as it's merely a single sentence in his file: _Physical and mental abuse present, patient refuses to elaborate.]_

In the months that follow, you're inseparable. The war has taken a toll on you and some nights you sleep on the cold ground next to his cot.

[This scene was very important to us, we wanted to illuminate the after effects of abandonment and reconciliation. We purposely softened the lighting as a contrast to life outside of the tent with its harsh colors and violence. Together they'd formed a safe haven in the middle of hell on Earth.]

You're a force to be reckoned with and he would follow you anywhere, to the very ends of the earth if you'd asked him to.

The beautiful woman with a British accent and a mean left hook sees the secret you're hiding. As a result, she holds back from the affection she feels. She's every box on a checklist of what you would want in a romantic partner and they just happen to match up to Barnes but she's not him. 

Guilt collects in your gut like a solid rock but these things cannot be helped. She offers to take you dancing after the war and you accept though the words burn after shes left. His eyes are unguarded and pained. You love him, he knows this. Right?

You shake it off as nerves and watch out the corner of your eye as his lips curve over the glass.

You want.

Yes, everything would be fine after the last of Hydra had been eliminated. You'd be free to return home and Bucky would be propped against the bar at The Stork Club. You'd finally get to have the drink you'd promised him back in Hydra's collapsing facility. "If we make it out of here alive we're going out and you can pick the place, " you'd said, voice shaky. He would taste like whiskey and you'd lick it from his lips when the two of you stumbled home. You'd lock the door tight, press his back against it and kiss the slender column of his neck until he begged for more. 

It's certainly something worth fighting for. Dancing, a stunningly gorgeous woman and the man he loves. What a pretty picture it forms. 

Until then, you love him and keep it to yourself. It's difficult to hide but you limit it to longingly watching him from afar like a prize that you've won but cannot collect. 

There is so much left unspoken. 

 

**Less than 6 months later.**

He falls seemingly to his death during a risky mission in the Alps.

You die with him that fateful day and the shell that remains is reborn as Captain America. 

(You will not find yourself again until you are sure he lives and by then it will be too late.)

[The files from back then are a clear cut black and white view of Steve Rogers mental state afterward. As they're open source to the public I can and will share them here.]

_**[DAY 1]** _

_Mental evaluation_

_Rogers, Steven G._

_Patient's answers are clipped, brief. Refuses to make eye contact._

_Possibly suffers from battle fatigue due to trauma._

_When offered sleep medication, he refused and stated 'It won't help. I've tried everything.'_

_When questioned about excessive alcohol consumption (as observed by Jones, Gabriel) patient replied 'I can't get drunk. What's the point?'_

_Patient appears distant, confused. Dazed._

**_[DAY 6]_ **

_Mental evaluation  
_

_Rogers, Steven G._

_Patient is no longer subdued._

_Patient is very angry and questions whether this is necessary as he has more pressing matters to tend to._

_Patient is cleared for duty per orders from Colonel Phillips._

 

[It's obvious, right? Rogers was mourning in the way that a husband might if he were to lose his young wife unexpectedly though I hesitate to compare it as such. He completely checked out from that point on. He hardened himself against the pain.] 

You're suicidal and vengeful. You make avenging his death your top priority and from there it's anyones guess but you do not expect to live long. He'd hate you for ever thinking of taking your own life because of him but there's nothing to be done about that. You take on giants of men and do not stop until it's over. Only then do you say your goodbyes and tell Agent Carter that this is the choice you're making. 

The Stork Club will not witness your uncoordinated dancing or flimsy attempts at woo'ing your best friend. 

He's never coming home and you make sure that your future and his are one in the same. 

The ice knocks you unconscious immediately. You wake, still living, three hours later. You do not want to breathe without him. 

The ice burns as you close your eyes. 

 You dream of him. You dream of Peggy. 

 

**2012.**

You're alive against your will some seventy years into the future. You sleep through the first week of life in a new era. When you wake it hits you like a punch that you weren't prepared for.

SHIELD's files read:

_Rogers woke after seven days of unconsciousness. His behavior is erratic and disoriented. Efforts to contain him were unsuccessful. Further study needed._

I had a date, you tell them. Nothing changes. 

You spend two weeks forcing grief from your mind until a SHIELD operative named Fury offers you an outlet for the pain. You join up with others to save the world and save yourself from the darkness. They call themselves the Avengers, you think they're a bomb with lit fuse.

You fight.

You are reckless in mourning and throw yourself into dangerous situations that could mean your untimely death but you don't care. You never wanted this life. 

Your face is on the cover of glossy magazines and newspapers that hail you as the hero who'd once sacrificed everything. They do not mention Bucky and it's salt to a seventy year old bleeding wound. They don't know the half of it and you don't tell them. 

 You learn to bury your grief. 

 

**2014.**

He's alive and it's jolting. It's a nightmare mixed with every fantasy you've ever entertained in this decade. He's not the same and his eyes are cold but you love him anyways. He tries to kill you and the whole world witnesses the fall out. A black and white grainy photograph on the front page featuring you on your knees with firearms surrounding reads: _America has fallen._

Rewind. Remember. Regret.

You lose him again and it feels like someone turned the lights out.

 You love him. He still does not know. 

 

**2016.**

Bucky is alive and he remembers. 

The government wants him dead.

[How far would you go to save the one you love? Would you commit treason and put a target on your head? Given a choice between the family you'd created and him, who would you choose?

If they refused to stop, would you wage a war in his name?

Would your love be selfless but fierce?

Would the past color your future and fuel rage at everything you'd lost and stood to lose once more?

Would.you.love.him.enough.]

 _Yes_. 

You step into his apartment. _Rewind_. You're sixteen and he's stretched out on the floor next to you with fingers in your hair. You wanted him then and you want him now even with knowing the name of every person he has assassinated.

Your face stares back from a worn journal with sticky notes marking certain pages - a red one for the brochure. It's wrinkled and tattered like it had witnessed one too many safe houses. A name is scribbled then marked out many times. 

 ~~Steven Grant~~.

 ~~Rogers~~. 

 ~~Steven Rogers~~. 

 ~~Stevie.~~  

 ~~Cpt Rogers~~. 

 ~~Steve Rogers~~. 

 ~~Captain America~~. 

 ~~ _Mine_??? Is he??? Were we???~~  

And finally, written with enough force that it leaves thick indents: _**STEVE**_. In parentheses: _(he's important_ ). 

They come for him before you have a chance to tell him you've got sketchbooks filled with his face in the nightstand beside of your bed.

[If interested in viewing Barnes journal it is now available in paperback published under the name **Buchanan Grant**. It is, of course, authored and distributed by James Barnes himself. It was released approximately two weeks after _Come Back to Me_ became a box office hit. Copies may be limited.] 

This is the turning point: save him or die trying.

You fight like hell and then you drop away.

[This is where the world lost track of the two of them. They disappeared from radar in the blink of an eye. They didn't resurface until 2017 when the U.N. called them in for a meeting that could not be avoided. We all know what happens next: the trial, a pardon, Rogers and Barnes living a sheltered quiet life away from the public eye.]

In the two years that were missing you did not date, did not marry. An offer was made from the late Agent Carters niece but you tell her you're too busy. She politely says she understands and does not ask again. You stay with him, always with him. 

 *

Here is where it comes together and unfolds beautifully. This is what we wanted to convey all along, the moment of truth. It was unbelievably simple: Barnes and Rogers holding hands in a diner. Confirmed. I'd been holding my breath until that moment. I didn't want to misrepresent their relationship but here it was falling into my lap.

As such I wanted to tell the story of their love. The one that you won't see on Conservative websites or in most "tell all" books. You'll notice that the past is shot in black and white. We chose that medium on purpose to sort of take the viewer back to a time where loving another man meant jail time and possibly death. It was a dangerous era in more ways than one. When we merge into modern day, the camera blooms with color. It's the past and present meeting in the middle to tell a story of two men who were desperately in love but chose to bury it in a shallow grave. The world needed to meet Barnes from Rogers perspective. We made that happen.

**_You love him, he knows_. **

*

Members of the LGBT community can relate to hiding a part of themselves and the feeling of fear in revealing it, the potential consequences. They see themselves in Rogers because of the struggle he endures in coming to terms with who he is and what Barnes means to him. James Barnes and Steve Rogers are pillars of strength in a community that's constantly beaten down by a culture that thrives on placing the heterosexual individual upon a pedestal. It's time to hear their voices.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why _Come Back to Me_ needed to be made.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by http://mrskitchenboy.tumblr.com/post/147981432740
> 
> title and tagline are from a song by ruelle "I get to love you" do yourself a favor and give it a listen
> 
> I really could lay off of writing stucky but it's my favorite pairing so yea have all of my feels


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